Yate is a commuter town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, at the southwest extremity of the Cotswold Hills, 11 miles (17.7 km) northeast of Bristol city centre. Yate developed from a village into a sizable town from the 1960s onwards, partly as an overspill or commuter town for the city of Bristol, although not a new town in the official sense, Yate took on many of the characteristics of one. At the 2011 census the population was 21,603, the town of Chipping Sodbury (population 5,045) is contiguous with Yate to the east. In addition, a large southern section of the built-up area spills over into the parish of Dodington (population 8,206), and so the total population of Yate's urban area is now approaching 35,000.

The first mention of Yate is the existence of a religious house in about AD 770; Yate is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name is derived from the Old English word giete or gete, meaning ‘a gateway into a forest area’.[2]

During the Anglo-Saxon period and well into medieval times, most of this part of south Gloucestershire was covered with forest. Through the centuries the land was cleared for farming.

The town's parish church, St Mary's,[3] dates from Norman times, it was altered during the 15th century and was extensively restored in 1970. St Mary's Primary School,[4] situated outside the churchyard walls, was built on the site of a former poorhouse.

It was the opening of the railway station in 1844, as part of Bristol and Gloucester Railway, that established Yate, with Station Road becoming the central thoroughfare, the cattle and produce markets were held around this road, and businesses were established there. Yate railway station was closed by the Beeching Axe in January 1965, but was reopened in May 1989; the Brunel-built engine shed is preserved nearby.

In the 1960s Yate was designated as a development area and the building boom began, the creation of a new town included a large retail shopping area, sports and leisure development together with public buildings.

When a secondary school was built in the late 1970s, it was supposed to be called Brinsham Green School, after Brinsham Lane at nearby Yate Rocks. Owing to a spelling error, however, it was in fact called Brimsham Green School.

The town further expanded in the 1990s and 2000s with the construction of housing at North Yate, this housing estate continued to use the corrupted name of Brimsham. To locals the area is known as Brimsham Park.

At the end of the Second World War, the site was taken over by the Royal Navy and became known as the Sea Transport Stores Depot, it was occupied by the Highways Agency until the sheds were demolished for development.Oxford Archaeology[5] has been commissioned to undertake an investigation as to the military significance of this site. The opinion of Bristol Industrial Archaeological Society has also been sought.[6]

Bus services within the Yate area are mainly provided by First Group and Wessex Connect. Other operators who provide bus services to/from Yate include Andybus, Severnside Transport and South Gloucestershire Bus and Coach Company.

Major growth in Yate started in the early 1920s with the construction of the Moorlands Road estates behind Station Road, close to the Parnall aeroplane factory; in the 1950s the Ridge housing estate was developed. The area between these estates was still being mined for celestine and therefore could not be built on until the mineral had been extracted.

In the 1960s the area around Stanshawes was exhausted of celestine and the housing boom started with the major construction taking place in the south. Much of this development was planned using the Radburn model, a design that created a vehicle-free environment by the use of green spaces and linking paths at the front of the houses, this model was used until the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the planners reverted to traditional street design methods for the development of the remainder of North Yate, Brinsham Park and the Newmans factory site.

Before the Second World War, Yate had an aircraft manufacturing industry (Parnall) with a grass aerodrome,[7] during the Second World War, Parnall specialised in making gun turrets. A number of people were killed in raids by the Luftwaffe on the factory in February and March 1941.[8]

Following the war, the Parnall factory turned to the manufacture of domestic goods and was famous for its washing machines; in 1958 Parnall merged with Radiation Ltd to become known as Jackson, producing the Jackson range of cookers. Through mergers and acquisitions, Jacksons is now part of Indesit and the Jackson name is no longer used.

Newman's of Bristol had a large factory on Station Road, from 1932 until the 1980s, in its heyday in the 1960s, employing over 1,500 people.

Yate has had three natural products associated with it: limestone to the east, celestine or spar near the centre of the town and coal to the west.

The need for limestone increased with the growth of roads, while the demand for coal grew with the diminishing supply of timber. Celestine, the major strontium mineral, was first dug in the late 1880s and was initially used for the refining of sugar beet, at one time Yate’s celestine accounted for 95 per cent of the world's production.[9] It colours flames red, and so was important for pyrotechnics such as fireworks, military and signal flares and tracer bullets, the last commercial excavation of celestine from the Yate area was for use during the Vietnam War. The mining company, Bristol Mineral and Land Co, closed in 1994.

Construction of a pedestrianised shopping centre of around a hundred shops began in the early-to-mid-1960s,[10] the shopping centre was opened by Patricia Phoenix, (who played Elsie Tanner in ITV's Coronation Street), Mary Rand (athlete) and Ted Ray (comedian). As with the most British net towns, modern art was included in the design: in the case of Yate, this was in the form of the Four Seasons sculpture, and a graceful and dramatic spire-shaped sculpture, which could be seen for miles, mounted high above the centre on the roof of one of the shops, this sculpture existed until the early 1990s when it was removed during the revamping of the centre, which included the erection of glass roofs over the walkways. An extension to East Walk was constructed at the start of the 1980s, and this included the construction of a new Tesco store, with the old store in South Walk turned into a Tesco Home and Wear store. An extension to West Walk was constructed in the early 1990s.

Yate shopping centre housed a single screen cinema until the early 1980s, it was closed and replaced with Spirals nightclub. The club closed in the 2000s and was replaced with Rileys pool club and then by Waves, another club. Waves closed in 2012. A youth centre called Armadillo opened in 2011.

On 19 November 2009, a large crowd packed into the shopping centre to see Peter Andre switch on the town's Christmas lights and sing his single "Unconditional".

On 15 November 2012, Steps plus a finalist (still to be announced) from the 2012 series of the X Factor were due to switch on the town centre's Christmas lights.

In December 2006, the owners of the shopping centre (Dominion Corporate Trustees) announced plans to enlarge and modernise it; in Phase 1 one of the main changes has been the replacement of the existing small Tesco with a large Tesco Extra. To replace lost shopping centre parking following the enlargement, the store is on stilts, with parking beneath, it opened on 24 October 2011.

Located near the shopping centre are Lidl, Morrisons and B&Q. There are two Tesco Express stored in Yate: one on Station Road and one in Brinsham Park, the B&Q was built in the mid-to-late 1980s, along with two small housing estates, on the site of the Newman's electric motor factory which had been demolished in the mid-1980s. There is also a Screwfix branch located on one of the trading estates

In 2008, construction of a new health centre began on the site of the old one, costing around £12 million. The new West Gate Health Centre (formerly the West Walk Health Centre) was officially opened on 8 March 2010.

In August 2009, plans were agreed for Tesco to pull down their store and replace it with a more modern store, known as a Tesco Extra, the plans include four more shop units, moving the bus station and a revamped entrance to East Walk. The revamp of the town's bus station was officially opened in January 2010. A temporary Tesco store was opened on 28 February 2011 while the new Tesco Extra was under construction, the old Tesco closed its doors on 27 February 2011 and the Tesco Extra store opened on 24 October 2011.

It was revealed in September 2011 that Marks and Spencer have asked for planning permission for a new store in two of the four new units, on which building work will commence in October 2012, the other two units will be occupied by Costa Coffee and Sports Direct. This second phase of the centre's expansion plans is being built next to Superdrug, in East Walk (opposite the Tesco Extra store), the public toilets next to the Superdrug store will be demolished and re-built on West Walk.

J. D. Wetherspoons public house and restaurant opened in the summer of 2012, on the corner of South Walk/South Parade, occupying several units, including the former Motorworld store.

In September 2014, it was finally announced that Yate would get a new cinema, the cinema would be operated by Cineworld and would be part of a further expansion to the Yate Shopping Centre, which is also to include seven restaurants. The extension will be built on and behind the current overflow carpark on Link Road, on the other side from the Tesco Extra store, and will be called 'Yate Riverside'. Construction began in early 2015 and the cinema opened in spring 2016.

The town has several parks and areas of open space, the largest of these is Kingsgate Park, which has an adventure playground for children.

The town is served by a community radio station, GLOSS FM which broadcasts 365 days a year on its webcasts and twice a year on 87.7 MHz FM.

A Cineworld cinema opened in the new riverside shopping centre in January 2016.

The town benefits from a four appliance firestation, with a retained Crew 24 hours and the further tenders manned on a voluntary basis. Next to the firestation is a 6 bay ambulance station with a further 3 ambulances and 2 response cars stabled outside.

Yate and Chipping Sodbury have been earmarked for 5,000 new homes to be built by 2026. While the location of the housing has yet to be decided, the expected areas are to the north of Yate, and towards Chipping Sodbury.

Chipping Sodbury Cricket Club[14] is Yate's nearest cricket club, providing cricket for men, women, boys and girls, they play their home matches on their two grounds at the Ridings playing fields in Chipping Sodbury.

Yate is also home to Yate United Youth F.C., the largest local youth only football club, established in 1971. They play their home matches at Yate Outdoor Sports Complex, Sunnyside Playing Fields and Kelston Close playing fields.[17]

The largest local club is St. Nicholas F.C. Otherwise known as St. Nick's, this club has a total of 21 teams, including two ladies and one men's team, they play at The Ridings, Wickwar Road, Chipping Sodbury. The women's first team, St Nicholas L.F.C., play in South West Division One of the FA Women's Premier League, and play their home games at Yate Town's ground on Lodge Road.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, was born in 1965 at the Chipping Sodbury Maternity Hospital (later the Chipping Sodbury Memorial Day Centre), on Station Road, Yate. Until the age of four, she lived with her parents in Sundridge Park, Yate.[21][22][23]

Yate was awarded the tongue-in-cheek honour of being the 45th worst place to live in the UK, according to the Idler Book of Crap Towns,[24] while Half Man Half Biscuit's song "The Referee's Alphabet" on their Cammell Laird Social Club album of 2002 informs the listener that "Y is for Yate, the kind of town that referees come from".

Gloucestershire
–
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, thoug

Ordnance Survey National Grid
–
The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Gr

Civil parishes in England
–
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than

1.
Map of English parishes and Welsh communities

Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of loca

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Districts (England)

South Gloucestershire
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South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority in South West England. It comprises multiple suburban areas to the north and east of Bristol, South Gloucestershire was created in 1996 from the northern section of the county of Avon, which was abolished at that time. The area includes multiple towns and population centres, with many of these continuing

Ceremonial counties of England
–
The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that ar

1.
Ceremonial counties (England)

Regions of England
–
The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, E

1.
Regions of England English regions

South West England
–
South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and

Countries of the United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organiza

England
–
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain

United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border wi

4.
The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.

Postcodes in the United Kingdom
–
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the Universit

1.
Street name signs on Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing old "Birmingham 22" (top) and modern "B44" postcodes.

Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
–
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk cod

1.
Location of the United Kingdom (dark green)

Avon and Somerset Constabulary
–
The first police force in England was formed in Covent Garden by Somerset born novelist Henry Fielding, in 1748. In 1835, Bristol and Bath became the first to create their own forces in the county itself. The original Bristol constabulary had 232 officers issued with a top hat, blue coat and this constabulary began certain practices that were event

Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They

Avon Fire and Rescue Service
–
Avon Fire & Rescue Service is the fire and rescue service covering the unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire in South West England. Avon Fire Brigade was created in 1974, when Avon county was created, in 1996, the county was abolished and four separate unitary authorities were create

1.
Avon Fire and Rescue Service badge

Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of

South Western Ambulance Service
–
The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service across South West England. On March 1,2011 SWASFT was the first ambulance service in the country to become a Foundation Trust, the Trust merged with neighbouring Great Western Ambulance Service on

1.
Scilly Isles August 2014

2.
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

3.
SWAST ambulance on an emergency call

List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
–
There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom, each electing a single Member of Parliament to the House of Commons every five years. Voting last took place in all 650 of those constituencies at the United Kingdom general election on 7 May 2015, in addition there is the constituency of the Speaker, which by tradition does not belong to any part

Thornbury and Yate (UK Parliament constituency)
–
Thornbury and Yate is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since the 2015 election by Luke Hall, a Conservative. Encompassing an area to the north-east of Bristol, it is one of three constituencies that make up the South Gloucestershire Unitary Authority Area, along with Filton and Bradley Stoke and Kingswood. Thi

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Boundary of Thornbury and Yate in Avon.

List of United Kingdom locations

1.
The United Kingdom

List of places in England

Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a

1.
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

Commuter town
–
A commuter town is a town whose residents normally work elsewhere, although they live, eat and sleep in these neighborhoods. The name also suggests that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward locals. A commuter town may also be known as an exurb, or a community, bedroom town

2.
Camarillo, California, a typical U.S. bedroom community made up almost entirely of homes, schools, and retail outlets.

Civil parish
–
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than

1.
Map of English parishes and Welsh communities

Cotswolds
–
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and

Bristol city centre
–
Bristol city centre is the commercial, cultural and business centre of Bristol, England. It is the south of the central ring road and north of the Floating Harbour, bounded north by St Pauls and Easton, east by Temple Meads and Redcliffe. It is contained entirely within the Council ward of Cabot, the historic heart of the city was immediately north

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The channelled River Avon (the Floating Harbour) flows through the city centre. Most of the central part of the City of Bristol is shown here

2.
The heart of Bristol city centre, seen from the bottom of Park Street

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Radisson Blu Hotel and Broad Quay Serviced Apartments, The Centre

Planned community
–
A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in an ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in these communities, the term new town refers to planned communities of the new to

1.
Partizánske in Slovakia – an example of a typical planned industrial city founded in 1938 together with a shoemaking factory in which practically all adult inhabitants of the city were employed.

UK census
–
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and Ireland in 1921. Simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, the most recent UK census took place in 2011. Tax assessments were made in Britain in Roman times, bu

Chipping Sodbury
–
Chipping Sodbury is a market town in the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire, south-west England, founded in the 12th century by William Crassus. The villages of Old Sodbury and Little Sodbury are nearby, at the census the combined population of Yate and Chipping Sodbury was 26,855. Chipping Sodbury is the settlement in the civil parish of S

1.
The wide main street of Chipping Sodbury. Cars are parked where market stalls would once have been.

South West of England
–
South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and

M4 motorway
–
The M4 is a motorway which runs between London and South Wales in the United Kingdom. Major towns and cities along the route include Slough, Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, a new Severn bridge, known as the Second Severn Crossing, was opened in 1996 with the M4 rerouted to use it. The M4 runs close to the A4 from London to Bristol, aft

3.
The original (A48(M)) bridge over the River Neath is to the right, the new M4 bridge is to the left

4.
The westbound carriageway tolls (left), near Rogiet, and the three-lane eastbound carriageway

South Wales Main Line
–
It diverges from the core London-Bristol line at Royal Wootton Bassett near Swindon, first calling at Bristol Parkway, after which the line continues through the Severn Tunnel into South Wales. Great Western Railway operates High Speed Trains between London and South Wales and services between Cardiff and South West England, crossCountry provides s

1.
The entrance to the Severn Tunnel on the English side

2.
Four track railway outside Cardiff

Great Western Main Line
–
The Great Western main line is a main line railway in Great Britain, that runs westwards from Londons Paddington station to Bristol Temple Meads. It was the route of the pre-1948 Great Western Railway which was merged into the Western Region of British Railways and is now a part of the national rail system managed by Network Rail. The line is curre

Cross Country Route
–
The UK cross-country route is a long-distance UK rail route that has in its central part superseded the Midland Railway. It runs from Cornwall via Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds and it facilitates some of the longest passenger journeys in the UK such as Penzance to Aberdeen. In the summer services are provided to additional coastal statio

Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is an important transport hub for transport in the city. In addition to the services there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts. Bristols other main station, Bristol Parkway, is on the northern outskirts of the conurbation. Temple

Birmingham New Street railway station
–
Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in the city centre of Birmingham, England. It is a hub of the British railway system. The station is named after New Street, which runs parallel to the station, historically the main entrance to the station was on Stephenson Street, just off New Street. Today the st

1.
The east end of the station

2.
An aerial view of the original New Street from the early 20th century, showing the LNWR and Midland stations side by side, with Queens Drive between them

3.
The interior of the original LNWR station in the late 19th Century, with its once record breaking roof

4.
Midland Railway's extension of New Street station, in 1885

Yate railway station
–
Yate railway station serves the town of Yate in South Gloucestershire, in south west England. The station is located on the main Bristol to Birmingham line between Bristol Parkway and Cam & Dursley, and is operated by Great Western Railway, the station is staffed on weekday mornings. It has two platforms, separated by the A432 road bridge, an autom

The Cotswolds
–
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and

Parliament of the United Kingdom
–
It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories. Its head is the Sovereign of the United Kingdom and its seat is the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the boroughs of the British capital, the parliament is bicameral, consisting of an upper house

Historic counties of England
–
The historic counties of England were established for administration by the Normans, in most cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires established by the Anglo-Saxons and others. They ceased to be used for administration with the creation of the counties in 1889. They are alternatively known as ancient counties or traditional counties, where they

4.
The ancient county boundaries of Warwickshire covered a larger area than the county in 1974 (in green).

Northavon
–
Northavon was a district in the English county of Avon from 1974 to 1996. The district was formed by the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974 as part of a reform of local authorities throughout England and Wales. Under the reorganisation, the surrounding the cities of Bath and Bristol was formed into a new county of Avon. The county was divide

1.
Northavon

County of Avon
–
Avon /ˈeɪvən/ was, from 1974 to 1996, a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England. The county was named after the River Avon, which runs through the area and it was formed from parts of the historic counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset, together with the City of Bristol. In 1996, the county was abolished and the split betwee

1.
Avon shown within England

Ceremonial county
–
The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that ar

1.
Ceremonial counties (England)

Domesday Book
–
Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states, Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Glocester with his council. After this had the king a large meeting, and very deep consultation with his council, about thi

1.
Domesday Book: an engraving published in 1900. Great Domesday (the larger volume) and Little Domesday (the smaller volume), in their 1869 bindings, lying on their older " Tudor " bindings.

2.
Great Domesday in its " Tudor " binding: a wood-engraving of the 1860s

3.
Domesday chest, the German-style iron-bound chest of c.1500 in which Domesday Book was kept in the 17th and 18th centuries

Old English language
–
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken

1.
A detail of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript, showing the words "ofer hron rade", i.e. "over the whale's road (=sea)". It is an example of an Old English stylistic device, the kenning.

3.
The first page of the Beowulf manuscript with its opening Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."

History of Anglo-Saxon England
–
Anglo-Saxon England was early medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th century from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066. It consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927 when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan and it became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal unio

1.
Escomb Church, a restored 7th century Anglo-Saxon church. Church architecture and artefacts provide a useful source of historical information.

Middle Ages
–
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The med

Bristol and Gloucester Railway
–
The Bristol and Gloucester Railway opened in 1844 between Bristol and Gloucester, meeting the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. It is now part of the line from the North-East of England through Derby. In the early century, Bristol was an important port. In 1824 a meeting was held at the White Lion Inn in Bristol to discuss the idea of a railway to

1.
Sketchmap of Bristol and Gloucester as originally built with associated railways

2.
Down coal train south of Haresfield in 1962

Beeching Axe
–
The 1963 report also recommended some less well publicised changes, including a switch to containerisation for rail freight. After growing rapidly in the 19th century during the Railway Mania, after the First World War the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which led to the closure of some 1,300 miles of pa

1.
The overgrown viaduct across Lobb Ghyll on the Skipton to Ilkley Line in Yorkshire, built by the Midland Railway in 1888 and closed in 1965.

2.
British Railways crest as used on coaching stock and some diesel locomotives from 1956 until the late 1960s

2.
A nineteenth century Photochrom of the Great Bath at the Roman Baths. The entire structure above the level of the pillar bases is a later construction and was not a feature of the building in Roman days.

2.
Part of the Ministry of Defence Defence Equipment and Support) building at Abbey Wood, Filton. The site employs over 4000 people, managing procurement contracts for the Navy, the Army and the Air Force

3.
19th-century engraving of Parish church of St James the Less. The preaching cross, of which then only the base survived, erected by Sir Robert Poyntz, is shown in the churchyard, centre

4.
Arms of Poyntz: Quarterly 1st & 4th, barry of eight or and gules (Poyntz); 2nd & 3rd, quarterly per fess indented argent and azure (Acton). The escutcheon, suspended by the guige strap from an initial letter "T", is shown on a field of oak leaves, a reference to the etymology of the ancient settlement of Acton ("Oak-town")

3.
Column dedicated to Paris in Rome. Since April 9, 1956 Rome and Paris are exclusively and reciprocally twinned with each other, following the motto: "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris."

4.
The painting of Gagny

Bad Salzdetfurth

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St. Cosmas and Damian Catholic Church, Groß Düngen

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Aerial view

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River Lamme and town centre

Gun turret

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A modern gun turret allows firing of the cannons via remote control. Loading of ammunition is also often done by automatic mechanisms.

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The London Studios near Waterloo was originally the base for the ITV London weekend contractor LWT but is now ITV's main London headquarters.

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ITV

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Granada Studios was the oldest TV studios in the UK, having been built in 1954 to house the broadcaster of the same name. The studios were closed in June 2013. Granada is the only franchise to remain an ITV contractor since creation in 1954.

1.
Gloucestershire
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Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey

2.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide

3.
Civil parishes in England
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century

Civil parishes in England
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Map of English parishes and Welsh communities

4.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire

Districts of England
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Districts (England)

5.
South Gloucestershire
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South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority in South West England. It comprises multiple suburban areas to the north and east of Bristol, South Gloucestershire was created in 1996 from the northern section of the county of Avon, which was abolished at that time. The area includes multiple towns and population centres, with many of these continuing to expand in both population and industry. Many of these towns and population areas are listed under two major subheadings below, South Gloucestershire took its title for historic reasons, but as a unitary authority it is not administered as part of the shire county of Gloucestershire. It is, however, part of the county of Gloucestershire. However, under the terms of that act, the area was removed from Gloucestershire, in 1996, the county of Avon was abolished, and South Gloucestershire was created as a unitary authority comprising the former districts of Kingswood and Northavon. The area borders the city and county of Bristol, the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, the geographic area currently known as South Gloucestershire should not be confused with Southern Gloucestershire. Nor should organisations or bodies in the past titled South Gloucestershire, in the 2001 census, the population of South Gloucestershire was 245,641. In the 2011 census, this had increased to 262,767, much of the population is in towns that form the suburbs to the north and east of Bristol. There are also the large Towns of Yate and Thornbury, along with Chipping Sodbury plus the population centres of Winterbourne, and Frampton Cotterell areas. The main employers are the authority with 9,500 people and the Ministry of Defence Headquarters for Defence Procurement. Other key employers include Airbus, Rolls Royce and the Royal Mail, friends Provident and Hewlett Packard also have major offices in nearby Stoke Gifford. Many employers operate in the developed area between the northern edge of Bristol and the M5 motorway, an area sometimes described as the North Fringe of Bristol. This includes the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre, comprising The Mall regional shopping centre, East of Patchway are the Aztec West and Almondsbury business parks either side of the A38, extending to Bradley Stoke and the M4/M5 Almondsbury Interchange. Employers with sites in this area include EE and the RAC, South Gloucestershire is home to 99 primary schools and 16 secondary schools, and post-16 centres. There is one university, which was a polytechnic, The University of the West of England. In 2008, DCSF figures revealed that there was a 6. 6% overall absence in the secondary schools. The River Severn forms the edge of the area, with a wide coastal plain terminated by an escarpment

6.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk

Ceremonial counties of England
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Ceremonial counties (England)

7.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards

Regions of England
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Regions of England English regions

8.
South West England
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South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation. There are eight cities, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and it includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and four World Heritage Sites, including Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall, the region has by far the longest coastline in England and many seaside fishing towns. The region is at the first-level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes, key data and facts about the region are produced by the South West Observatory. Following the abolition of the South West Regional Assembly and Government Office, the region is known for its rich folklore, including the legend of King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor, as well as its traditions and customs. Cornwall has its own language, Cornish, and some regard it as a Celtic nation, the South West of England is known for Cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider. It is also home to the Eden Project, Aardman Animations, the Glastonbury Festival, most of the region is located on the South West Peninsula, between the English Channel and Bristol Channel. It has the longest coastline of all the English regions, totalling over 700 miles, much of the coast is now protected from further substantial development because of its environmental importance, which contributes to the region’s attractiveness to tourists and residents. Geologically the region is divided into the largely igneous and metamorphic west and sedimentary east, Cornwall and West Devons landscape is of rocky coastline and high moorland, notably at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. These are due to the granite and slate that underlie the area, the highest point of the region is High Willhays, at 2,038 feet, on Dartmoor. In North Devon the slates of the west and limestones of the east meet at Exmoor National Park, the variety of rocks of similar ages seen here have led to the countys name being lent to that of the Devonian period. The east of the region is characterised by wide, flat clay vales and chalk, the vales, with good irrigation, are home to the regions dairy agriculture. The Blackmore Vale was Thomas Hardys Vale of the Little Dairies, another and these downs are the principal area of arable agriculture in the region. Limestone is also found in the region, at the Cotswolds, Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills, all of the principal rock types can be seen on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon, where they document the entire Mesozoic era from west to east. The climate of South West England is classed as oceanic according to the Köppen climate classification, the oceanic climate typically experiences cool winters with warmer summers and precipitation all year round, with more experienced in winter. Annual rainfall is about 1,000 millimetres and up to 2,000 millimetres on higher ground, summer maxima averages range from 18 °C to 22 °C and winter minimum averages range from 1 °C to 4 °C across the south-west

South West England
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High Willhays on Dartmoor, Devon, the region's highest point.
South West England
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South West England region in England
South West England
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Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset: the entire city is a World Heritage Site.
South West England
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M5 looking north towards Avonmouth

9.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish

Countries of the United Kingdom

10.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years

11.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

12.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information

Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Street name signs on Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing old "Birmingham 22" (top) and modern "B44" postcodes.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom

13.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995

Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Location of the United Kingdom (dark green)

14.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
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The first police force in England was formed in Covent Garden by Somerset born novelist Henry Fielding, in 1748. In 1835, Bristol and Bath became the first to create their own forces in the county itself. The original Bristol constabulary had 232 officers issued with a top hat, blue coat and this constabulary began certain practices that were eventually adopted country-wide, including recruiting female officers and photographing prisoners. Bridgwater and Chard followed with their own constabularies in 1839, with all forces being merged into the Somerset Constabulary in 1940 and it was the only force to provide a mounted escort for the Queen during her Royal Jubilee tour of Bristol in 1977. Avon & Somerset Constabulary provides service for approximately 1.5 million people, in January 2013, Port took the PCC to court to seek an injunction to block the interviews of candidates for the post of Chief Constable. In mid-May 2014, Gargan was suspended by Commissioner Mountstevens following allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards female officers, the enquiry into the allegations was referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Gargan is reported by the Commissioner to have denied the allegations, during the period of Gargans suspension, the force was run by the Deputy Chief Constable, John Long. Records of the Bristol Constabulary and Avon and Somerset Constabulary are held at Bristol Archives, the constabulary is overseen by the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner, a new elected position which replaced the Avon and Somerset Police Authority in November 2012. The police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Panel, the first police and crime commissioner, who was elected on 15 November 2012 and took office on 21 November 2012, is Sue Mountstevens. She had previously been a magistrate and a member of the police authority, the Portishead complex cost £31 million to construct and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1995. Avon and Somerset Police use a total of 41 police stations, targeted Patrol Teams responding to emergency calls. Traffic Units patrol the roads and target and pursue people committing traffic offences, criminal Investigation Departments detect serious crime Forensic Services investigate crime scenes for forensic evidence that may correspond with many of the Home Office databases. Pro-active Policing Units target persistent criminals and focus on specific operations, Dog Units are officers who patrol with dogs and respond to incidents where a police dog is required. The helicopter is staffed by officers of both forces and features various technology including thermal imaging, a spotlight and Global Positioning System. The aircraft has a time of two minutes. The helicopter can also be used as an air ambulance when required and this is now under the control of the NPAS. This collaboration also encompasses the Armed Response Units and Police Dog Patrols, the RPU has 55 cars and 28 motorcycles. The RPU has three bases, Almondsbury, Weston-Super-Mare and Taunton, Avon and Somerset Constabulary has a Support Group that specialise in very specific needs of investigations or missions, such as police divers, football match management and explosive searching

15.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association

16.
Avon Fire and Rescue Service
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Avon Fire & Rescue Service is the fire and rescue service covering the unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire in South West England. Avon Fire Brigade was created in 1974, when Avon county was created, in 1996, the county was abolished and four separate unitary authorities were created. Administration of the service was taken over by a joint fire authority made up of councillors from the four unitary authorities, in 2004, the Fire And Rescue Services Act was passed. To better reflect the roles and responsibilities of the fire service. Fleur Lombard QGM was the first female firefighter to die on duty in peacetime Britain, while Avon Fire, the Fleur Lombard Bursary Fund provides travel grants so that a junior UK firefighter may visit the fire service of another country. The role of a fire and rescue service has increased from fighting fires to cover the core functions of Protecting, Preventing and Responding. The fire service aims to cut the risk of developing in the first place by promoting safety messages to local residents. Avon Fire & Rescue Service runs community safety campaigns, the summer 2009 campaign, Be BBQ Safe, included a hard hitting interview with a BBQ fire burns victim who spent the previous summer in intensive care after using nitro to light his BBQ. The Car Clear scheme was launched in 2001, with the intention of promptly removing abandoned vehicles from streets and this eliminates the possibility of arson attacks. In meeting their Mission, Vision and Values Avon Fire & Rescue Service utilizes a large cadre of emergency equipment and these include 81 appliances,51 pumping appliances, four turntable ladders and 16 special appliances. Adding to the emergency response can also be their boats, pods, fork lift trucks, a Control Emergency Evacuation Vehicle. In 2009 &2011 Avon Fire & Rescue added 2 - Polybilt bodied Combined Aerial Rescue Platforms, the first began service at the Patchway fire station and was subsequently moved to the Speedwell fire station. The second was assigned to the Bedminster fire station, however both of these appliances have been withdrawn from service by July 2016 and the bodywork has been removed from the chassis to allow for the chassis to be used for new specialist appliances. Also in 2009 to better serve the public the Yate Fire Station was upgraded to “whole-time/retained status”, firefighters would now be ready to respond from the fire station 24/7. This was an upgrade from the previously “crewed” status of 0800 –1700 hours daily and firefighters responding from their homes. As part of the “Investing for the Future” programme which began in 2014 Kingswood Fire Station was closed for refurbishment, the Kingswood Fire Station project was completed and subsequently the Speedwell Fire Station closed permanently all in 2015. The Chair of Avon Fire Authority assured the public that response standards will remain unchanged, along with the Speedwell Fire Station the Keynsham Fire Station was also closed November 1,2015. According to the Chairman of Avon Fire Authority, Councillor Peter Abraham The regeneration of Keynsham town centre meant we needed to move the existing Keynsham Fire Station

Avon Fire and Rescue Service
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Avon Fire and Rescue Service badge

17.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards

18.
South Western Ambulance Service
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The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service across South West England. On March 1,2011 SWASFT was the first ambulance service in the country to become a Foundation Trust, the Trust merged with neighbouring Great Western Ambulance Service on 1 February 2013. SWASFT serves a population of more than 5.3 million, the operational area is predominantly rural but also has large urban centres including Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Truro, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester, Bournemouth and Poole. The Trust’s core operations include, Emergency ambulance 999 services Urgent Care Services – GP out-of-hours medical care NHS111 call-handling and triage services Tiverton Urgent Care Centre. It is one of ten Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency services and employs more than 4,000 mainly clinical and operational staff plus GPs. The Trust is one of the largest in England and it covers an area of 51,871 km and 827 miles of coastline. In 2015/16 approximately one in eight 999 calls to South Western Ambulance Service are treated over the telephone, hear and treat is 12. 7% of calls and means the patient receives clinical advice over the telephone. For 36. 4% of incidents the patients experience see and treat, in a further 7. 7% of incidents, the patient is taken to a non-emergency hospital department so that might mean a community hospital or minor injuries unit. The remaining incidents result in a patient being taken to an emergency department. SWASFT is the best performing ambulance service in the country for non-conveyance rates, in addition approximately 62% of patients taken to hospital are admitted – this is again the highest performance for an ambulance trust in the country. SWASFT place a lot of emphasis on patient experience and actively encourage feedback about its services - whether positive or negative, lessons learned from the feedback, and all improvements and changes, are reported to its Board of Directors. The Trust also engages with patients and the public at events and shows, the number of compliments received by the Trust in 2014/15 increased by 41% to 2,055. Complaints also rose by 20% to 1,268, the easiest way to contact the Trust is online at their website. In May 2014 the Trust won a contract to run a minor injuries unit at Tiverton and District Hospital

South Western Ambulance Service
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Scilly Isles August 2014
South Western Ambulance Service
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South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
South Western Ambulance Service
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SWAST ambulance on an emergency call

19.
List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
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There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom, each electing a single Member of Parliament to the House of Commons every five years. Voting last took place in all 650 of those constituencies at the United Kingdom general election on 7 May 2015, in addition there is the constituency of the Speaker, which by tradition does not belong to any party. The number of seats rose from 646 at the 2005 general election after proposals made by the commissions for England, Wales. Constituencies in Scotland remained unchanged, as the Boundary Commission for Scotland had completed a review just before the 2005 general election, for the 2013 review this was primarily the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. The Sainte-Laguë formula method is used to form groups of seats split between the four parts of the United Kingdom and the English Regions, the electorate figures given in the second column of the tables below are those used by the commissions during their reviews. These electorate figures date from the start of the review in each country, England, February 2000, Scotland, June 2001, Wales, December 2002, and Northern Ireland, May 2003. Of the 650 seats listed below,533 are in England,59 in Scotland,40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland, Scotland – No changes from 2005 election. Wales – Number of seats unchanged, three seats were abolished and three were created, Aberconwy, Arfon, and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Northern Ireland – No extra or fewer seats allocated. England, North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Norfolk, Essex, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, isle of Wight maintained its status as one constituency, the largest by electorate. The City of York was divided into two seats, neither overlapping part of North Yorkshire, North London, Birmingham and the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear and South Yorkshire lost a seat each. Herefordshire and Worcestershire, to reflect their full reinstatement as separate counties, were considered in separate reviews, bath, Bristol and Somerset underwent arguably the most significant changes to reflect the abolition of Avon. Updated electorate figures from December 2010 have been added for the English, lists of electoral districts by nation Boundary Commission for N. I. Fifth Periodical Report – Parliamentary Constituencies of Northern Ireland

20.
Thornbury and Yate (UK Parliament constituency)
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Thornbury and Yate is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since the 2015 election by Luke Hall, a Conservative. Encompassing an area to the north-east of Bristol, it is one of three constituencies that make up the South Gloucestershire Unitary Authority Area, along with Filton and Bradley Stoke and Kingswood. This seat is a successor to the former Northavon constituency, which was abolished following boundary changes taking effect at the 2010 general election and it is named after the two largest towns in the constituency, Thornbury and Yate. This seat was fought for the first time at the 2010 general election and it was the first Liberal Democrat victory to be declared on the evening of 6 May. The vote share change comes from the results as this is a new seat. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Avon List of Parliamentary constituencies in Gloucestershire Notes References

21.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

22.
Commuter town
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A commuter town is a town whose residents normally work elsewhere, although they live, eat and sleep in these neighborhoods. The name also suggests that these communities have little commercial or industrial activity beyond a small amount of retail, oriented toward locals. A commuter town may also be known as an exurb, or a community, bedroom town or bedroom suburb. The phrase bedroom town has also adopted into the Japanese wasei-eigo word bed town. Suburbs and commuter towns often coincide, but not always, similar to college town, resort town, and mill town, the term commuter town describes the municipalitys predominant economic function. A suburb, in contrast, is a community of size, density, political power. A towns economic function may change, for example when improved transport brings commuters to industrial suburbs or railway towns in search of suburban living, commuter towns may be in rural or semi-rural areas, with a ring of green space separating them from the larger city or town. Where urban sprawl and conurbation have erased clear lines among towns and cities in large metropolitan areas, commuter towns can arise for a number of different reasons. Sometimes, as in Sleepy Hollow, New York or Tiburon, California, in other cases, a pleasant small town, such as Warwick, New York, over time attracts more residents but not large businesses to employ them, requiring denizens to commute to employment centers. Another cause, particularly relevant in the American South and West, is the growth of once-small cities. Owing largely to the creation of the Interstate Highway System. As a result, many cities were absorbed into the suburbs of these larger cities. Often, however, commuter towns form when workers in a region cannot afford to live where they work, the late 20th century dot-com bubble and United States housing bubble drove housing costs in Californian metropolitan areas to historic highs, spawning exurban growth in adjacent counties. For example, most cities in western Riverside County, California can be considered exurbs of Orange County, California and Los Angeles County, as of 2003, over 80% of the workforce of Tracy, California was employed in the San Francisco Bay Area. A related phenomenon is common in the towns of the American West that require large workforces, yet emphasize building larger single-family residences. In certain major European cites, such as Berlin and London, around London, several towns – such as Basildon, Crawley, Harlow, and Stevenage – were built for this purpose by the Commission for New Towns. In some cases, commuter towns can result from negative economic conditions, steubenville, Ohio, for instance, had its own regional identity along with neighboring Weirton, West Virginia until the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. In 2013, Jefferson County, Ohio was added to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area as part of its larger Combined Statistical Area, long-time residents may be displaced by new commuter residents due to rising house prices

Commuter town
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Morning rush hour at Maplewood, New Jersey's NJ Transit station
Commuter town
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Camarillo, California, a typical U.S. bedroom community made up almost entirely of homes, schools, and retail outlets.

23.
Civil parish
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century

Civil parish
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Map of English parishes and Welsh communities

24.
Cotswolds
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The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and into the countryside gained popularity. Now the Cotswolds boundaries are roughly 25 miles across and 90 miles long, stretching south-west from just south of Stratford-upon-Avon to just south of Bath. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties, mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the hills give their name to the Cotswold local-government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area. The highest point of the region is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft, there is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts. Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth, settlements such as Gloucester, the area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone wool churches. The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds. The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term, wold, compare also the Weald from the Saxon/German word Wald meaning wood. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names, Cutsdean, Codeswellan, the spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and this feature, known as the Cotswold escarpment, or sometimes the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms, the dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud, to the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath. The area is characterised by small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone. This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins, Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Dursley, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester and Stroud are larger urban centres that border on, or are surrounded by. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th, William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic Jurassic limestone

25.
Bristol city centre
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Bristol city centre is the commercial, cultural and business centre of Bristol, England. It is the south of the central ring road and north of the Floating Harbour, bounded north by St Pauls and Easton, east by Temple Meads and Redcliffe. It is contained entirely within the Council ward of Cabot, the historic heart of the city was immediately north of Bristol Bridge, between the River Frome and the River Avon, in the area of High Street, Broad Street and Corn Street. The eastern part of area, between the bridge and Bristol Castle, was destroyed in 1940 during the Bristol Blitz, but the western part largely survived. After the war, the area was redeveloped, and Castle Park was also created. The course of the River Frome, immediately to the west of the centre, was covered over in stages. The area became the hub of the tramway network, and was known as the Tramways Centre. It was so called long after the last trams left in 1939, between 1936 and 1938, the Centre was enlarged when more of the River Frome, between Broad Quay and St Augustines Parade, was covered in, making way for an inner ring road. These planning decisions are beginning to be reversed, for example, St Augustines Parade is also becoming less car oriented, as roads have been narrowed, turned into bus lanes or closed altogether. The Centre was redeveloped for the millennium, with fountains and a cascade being erected, like most 1950s buildings in Britain, affordable but architecturally uninteresting utilitarian buildings form the bulk of the Broadmead area. In the 1980s, some of these were demolished to make way for the Galleries shopping centre, in 2008, the shopping area was extended over the central ring road to produce a new shopping centre, Cabot Circus, which opened in September 2008. The City Docks were immediately south of the Centre, although most ships used Avonmouth Docks after the Royal Edward Dock was opened in 1908, ocean-going ships were regularly seen at the Centre until the 1960s. In 1972 the Royal Portbury Dock was opened, and the City Docks were closed, the harbour buildings, including the tobacco warehouses, became redundant

Bristol city centre
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The channelled River Avon (the Floating Harbour) flows through the city centre. Most of the central part of the City of Bristol is shown here
Bristol city centre
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The heart of Bristol city centre, seen from the bottom of Park Street
Bristol city centre
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Radisson Blu Hotel and Broad Quay Serviced Apartments, The Centre

26.
Planned community
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A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in an ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in these communities, the term new town refers to planned communities of the new towns movement in particular, mainly in the United Kingdom. It was also common in the European colonization of the Americas to build according to a plan either on ground or on the ruins of earlier Native American cities. C. in the United States. In Egypt, a new capital city east of Cairo has been proposed, the federal administrative centre of Malaysia, Putrajaya, is also a planned city. Abu Dhabi and some of the recently built cities in the Persian Gulf region are also planned cities, prior to the boom, these were just villages or towns. The city of Gaborone was planned and constructed in the 1960s, in 2012, President Teodoro Obiang decided to move the capital to a new jungle site at Oyala. Konza Technology City is a city that is hoped to become a hub of African science. The capital, Abuja, is a city and was built mainly in the 1980s. Upon completion, the new city which is still under development is anticipating 250,000 residents, centenary City, in the Federal Capital Territory, is another planned smart city under development. The city is designed to become a major tourist attraction to the country, a list of Nigerian cities and neighbourhoods that went through a form of planning are as follows, Abuja, one of the most populous planned cities, and the fastest growing city in the world. Ikeja, the capital of Lagos State Lekki, a new city in Lagos State Lekki Free Zone, a trade zone in the Lekki Orange Island. Victoria Island in Lagos, Lagos State A number of cities were set up during the apartheid-era for a variety of ethnic groups, Planned settlements set up for white inhabitants included Welkom, Sasolburg and Secunda. Additionally the majority of settlements in South Africa were planned in their early stages, some settlements were also set up for non whites such as the former homeland capital of Bhisho. Naypyidaw is the capital of Myanmar, also known as Burma and it is administered as the Naypyidaw Union Territory, as per the 2008 Constitution. On 6 November 2005, the capital of Burma was officially moved to a greenfield 3.2 km west of Pyinmana, and approximately 300 km north of Yangon. The capitals official name was announced on 27 March 2006, Burmese Armed Forces Day, much of the city was still under construction as late as 2012. As of 2009, the population was 925,000, which makes it Burmas third largest city, after Yangon, famous examples are Changan in Tang dynasty and Beijing

Planned community
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Partizánske in Slovakia – an example of a typical planned industrial city founded in 1938 together with a shoemaking factory in which practically all adult inhabitants of the city were employed.
Planned community
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Brasília at night from ISS.
Planned community
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Plan of Fredericia (Denmark) in 1900- the city founded in 1650.
Planned community
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A planned community in the Negev

27.
UK census
–
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and Ireland in 1921. Simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, the most recent UK census took place in 2011. Tax assessments were made in Britain in Roman times, but detailed records have not survived, in the 7th century AD, Dál Riata conducted a census, called the Tradition of the Men of Alba. England conducted its first formal census when the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086 under William I for tax purposes, distinct from earlier, less inclusive censuses, national decennial censuses of the general population started in 1801, championed by the statistician John Rickman. Regular national censuses have taken place every ten years since 1801, most recently in 2011. The first four censuses were mainly statistical, that is, mainly headcounts, the 1841 Census was the first to intentionally record names of all individuals in a household or institution. The Census Act of 1920 provides the framework for conducting all censuses in Great Britain. The primary legislation for Northern Ireland was introduced in 1969, before this legislation, it was necessary to have a separate act of parliament for each census. Britain was also responsible for initiating and co-ordinating censuses in many of its overseas colonies, because of the disruption caused by the Second World War, there was no census in 1941. However, following the passage into law on 5 September 1939 of the National Registration Act 1939, the resulting National Register was later used to develop the NHS Central Register. Censuses were taken on 26 April 1931 in Great Britain, but the returns for England, on 24 April 1966, the UK trialled an alternative method of enumeration – long form/short form. Every household was given a form to complete, while a sample of the population was given a long form to collect more detailed information. The short form was used for the count and to collect basic information such as usual address, sex, age. This was the first and only time that a census was carried out in the UK. The British government undertakes the census for policy and planning purposes, a number of datasets are also made available. However, personal information provided in confidence is likely to be exempted if disclosure could result in successful prosecution for breach of confidence, in exceptional circumstances, the Registrar General for England and Wales does release specific information from 70-, 80-, or 90-year-old closed censuses. National censuses in Scotland have been taken on the dates as those in England and Wales. Unlike the censuses for England and Wales, there was a bar on early release of the 1911 census details

UK census
–
Form used to poll English households during the 2001 Census.

28.
Chipping Sodbury
–
Chipping Sodbury is a market town in the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire, south-west England, founded in the 12th century by William Crassus. The villages of Old Sodbury and Little Sodbury are nearby, at the census the combined population of Yate and Chipping Sodbury was 26,855. Chipping Sodbury is the settlement in the civil parish of Sodbury. Little Sodbury is a civil parish. Sodbury parish council has elected to be known as Sodbury Town Council, an electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward starts in the north at Chipping Sodbury Golf Course, the total population of the ward taken at the 2011 census was 6,834. East of the town is the Chipping Sodbury Tunnel, a tunnel under the Cotswolds 2 miles 924 yards long. The tunnel is notorious for flooding in wet weather, often leading to disruption of services on the railway line to. Chipping Sodbury had a station from 1903 to 1961. Yate station, on the Bristol to Birmingham main line, closed in January 1965, Chipping Sodbury hosts a twice yearly Mop Fair, usually the last weekends of March and September. The town holds a Festival Week in early June, there is a farmers market twice a month, on the second and fourth Saturdays. A Victorian Evening is held on the first Friday in December, the event starts in the afternoon when school choirs perform in the street. The evenings events begin with the arrival of Father Christmas when snow is guaranteed, the streets are lined with stalls from local charities and organisations and old time amusements, including a Ferris wheel, Helter Skelter and two childrens rides. Choirs sing, bands play, and stalls bring a market feel, the town is served by a community radio station, GLOSS FM which broadcasts 365 days a year on its webcasts and twice a year on 87.7 MHz FM. Chipping Sodbury has two government funded schools and a secondary school. Chipping Sodbury School, the school, caters for children aged 11 to 18. The School shares Sixth Form provision with Brimsham Green School, the School obtained a Satisfactory status from Ofsted in 2011. St Johns Mead Primary School is named after the local CoE church, the other Primary School is Raysfield Infants and Junior schools

Chipping Sodbury
–
The wide main street of Chipping Sodbury. Cars are parked where market stalls would once have been.

29.
South West of England
–
South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation. There are eight cities, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and it includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and four World Heritage Sites, including Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall, the region has by far the longest coastline in England and many seaside fishing towns. The region is at the first-level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes, key data and facts about the region are produced by the South West Observatory. Following the abolition of the South West Regional Assembly and Government Office, the region is known for its rich folklore, including the legend of King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor, as well as its traditions and customs. Cornwall has its own language, Cornish, and some regard it as a Celtic nation, the South West of England is known for Cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider. It is also home to the Eden Project, Aardman Animations, the Glastonbury Festival, most of the region is located on the South West Peninsula, between the English Channel and Bristol Channel. It has the longest coastline of all the English regions, totalling over 700 miles, much of the coast is now protected from further substantial development because of its environmental importance, which contributes to the region’s attractiveness to tourists and residents. Geologically the region is divided into the largely igneous and metamorphic west and sedimentary east, Cornwall and West Devons landscape is of rocky coastline and high moorland, notably at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. These are due to the granite and slate that underlie the area, the highest point of the region is High Willhays, at 2,038 feet, on Dartmoor. In North Devon the slates of the west and limestones of the east meet at Exmoor National Park, the variety of rocks of similar ages seen here have led to the countys name being lent to that of the Devonian period. The east of the region is characterised by wide, flat clay vales and chalk, the vales, with good irrigation, are home to the regions dairy agriculture. The Blackmore Vale was Thomas Hardys Vale of the Little Dairies, another and these downs are the principal area of arable agriculture in the region. Limestone is also found in the region, at the Cotswolds, Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills, all of the principal rock types can be seen on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon, where they document the entire Mesozoic era from west to east. The climate of South West England is classed as oceanic according to the Köppen climate classification, the oceanic climate typically experiences cool winters with warmer summers and precipitation all year round, with more experienced in winter. Annual rainfall is about 1,000 millimetres and up to 2,000 millimetres on higher ground, summer maxima averages range from 18 °C to 22 °C and winter minimum averages range from 1 °C to 4 °C across the south-west

South West of England
–
High Willhays on Dartmoor, Devon, the region's highest point.
South West of England
–
South West England region in England
South West of England
–
Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset: the entire city is a World Heritage Site.
South West of England
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M5 looking north towards Avonmouth

30.
M4 motorway
–
The M4 is a motorway which runs between London and South Wales in the United Kingdom. Major towns and cities along the route include Slough, Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, a new Severn bridge, known as the Second Severn Crossing, was opened in 1996 with the M4 rerouted to use it. The M4 runs close to the A4 from London to Bristol, after crossing the River Severn it follows the A48 through South Wales, using the Brynglas Tunnels at Junction 25a, Newport and terminates just north of Pontarddulais. It is one of three motorways in Wales, the other two, the A48 and M48, branch off it. The area of land along the M4, with its towns, european route E30 includes most of the M4, although it is not signed as such. The Maidenhead bypass opened in 1961 whilst J1-J5 opened in 1965, the stretch from J18 to the west of Newport was opened in 1966, including the Severn Bridge. The Port Talbot by-pass, also built in the 1960s and now part of the M4, was originally the A48 motorway, the English section of the motorway was completed on 22 December 1971 when the 50-mile stretch between Junctions 9 and 15 was opened to traffic. The Welsh section was completed in 1993, when the Briton Ferry motorway bridge opened, the Second Severn Crossing opened in 1996, together with new link motorways on either side of the estuary to divert the M4 over the new crossing. The existing route over the Severn Bridge was redesignated the M48, in June 1999 the section of the third lane between Junctions 2 and 3 was converted to a bus lane, first as a pilot scheme and then permanently in 2001. A lower speed limit was introduced along the bus lane section at the same time, between 2007 and January 2010 the section from Castleton to Coryton was widened to six lanes. The scheme was opened on 25 January 2010 by Ieuan Wyn Jones the Deputy First Minister for Wales. During 2009 the Newport section of the motorway between Junctions 23a and 29 was upgraded with a new concrete central barrier. A similar claim was made for a 30-mile section of road in Scotland close to Aberdeen in September 2009 with refuelling points at Bridge of Don, Ellon and Peterhead. Between 2008 and 2010, Junction 11, near Reading, was remodelled with a new four-lane motorway junction. It also involved the movement of the local Highways Agency and Fire Service offices, and the construction of a footbridge network, a new bus-lane. Sound barriers for nearby areas were also installed. In April 2008, the decision to preserve a rare Vickers machine gun pillbox, the table below shows the timeline for the construction of the motorway on a section by section basis. Tolls are charged in one only, westbound

M4 motorway
–
The Second Severn Crossing
M4 motorway
M4 motorway
–
The original (A48(M)) bridge over the River Neath is to the right, the new M4 bridge is to the left
M4 motorway
–
The westbound carriageway tolls (left), near Rogiet, and the three-lane eastbound carriageway

31.
South Wales Main Line
–
It diverges from the core London-Bristol line at Royal Wootton Bassett near Swindon, first calling at Bristol Parkway, after which the line continues through the Severn Tunnel into South Wales. Great Western Railway operates High Speed Trains between London and South Wales and services between Cardiff and South West England, crossCountry provides services from Cardiff to Nottingham via Severn Tunnel Junction and thence the Gloucester to Newport Line via Gloucester and Birmingham. Arriva Trains Wales operates services between South Wales, and North Wales and the Midlands on the line and it is planned to electrify the line using the AC overhead system, with completion by 2018. This gave rise to the nickname Great Way Round, in 1886, the opening of the Severn Tunnel brought the opportunity of a more direct route to South Wales, and trains from Swindon to Newport and beyond were routed via Bristol and the Severn Tunnel. This route leaves the one we know today at Royal Wootton Bassett near Swindon rejoining it close to Patchway station, the route used today was established in 1903 with the building of what is often known as the Badminton Line. This involved the construction of about 33 miles of new track including two tunnels at Alderton and Sodbury between Royal Wootton Bassett and Patchway and this was the GWRs connection with trans-Atlantic ocean liner departures. There are four tracks from Severn Tunnel Junction through Newport to Cardiff Central, multiple-aspect signals are controlled from several power signal boxes including Swindon, Bristol and two in Cardiff. Over the August Bank Holiday weekend 2016 control of the signals between Westerleigh Junction and Pilning was switched over to the Thames Valley Signalling Centre and these signals now carry the prefix BL. A diversionary route if the Severn Tunnel is closed. If the line is closed between Cardiff Central and Bridgend, a route exists along the Vale of Glamorgan Line. Half of peak High Speed Trains and most off peak trains continue from Cardiff Central to Swansea, with a few continuing to Carmarthen or in summer, the local service between Swansea and Cardiff is branded Swanline. The urban network within and surrounding Cardiff, including the Maesteg Line, is referred to as Valley Lines, traffic levels on the Great Western Main Line are rising faster than the national average, with continued increases predicted. Reading railway station is undergoing a major redevelopment and there is a proposed future link to Heathrow Airport directly from Reading under the Heathrow Airtrack scheme. The South Wales Main Line is one of the last of the major inter-city routes in Great Britain to remain un-electrified, the government announced in July 2009 a scheme to electrify the South Wales Main Line as part of a wider scheme of electrification on the Great Western Main Line. By 2017, the line from London to Cardiff will be electrified, the new Hitachi Super Express trains planned for the Great Western inter-city services will now be predominantly electric units instead of the planned diesel units. However, a proportion of the fleet will be using power source electro-diesel bi-mode trains. The bi-mode trains will allow inter-city services to operate from London all the way to Carmarthen in the future, the new Super Express trains will bring about an estimated 15% increased capacity during the morning peak hours. On 7 March 2015, Battle of Britain-class locomotive 34067 Tangmere was hauling a train that overran a signal at Wooton Bassett

South Wales Main Line
–
The entrance to the Severn Tunnel on the English side
South Wales Main Line
–
Four track railway outside Cardiff

32.
Great Western Main Line
–
The Great Western main line is a main line railway in Great Britain, that runs westwards from Londons Paddington station to Bristol Temple Meads. It was the route of the pre-1948 Great Western Railway which was merged into the Western Region of British Railways and is now a part of the national rail system managed by Network Rail. The line is currently being electrified and it was electrified from Paddington to Heathrow Airport in the late 1990s. Work to electrify the remainder of the started in 2011 with an initial aim to complete the work all the way to Bristol by 2016. The programme however has been deferred for six years with no end completion forecast because costs have tripled. The four sections that are delayed are, Oxford to Didcot Parkway, Bristol Parkway to Bristol Temple Meads, Bath Spa to Bristol Temple Meads and the Thames Valley branches to Henley and Windsor. The line was built by the Great Western Railway and engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as a track line using a wider 7 ft broad gauge and was opened in stages between 1838 and 1840. The alignment was so level and straight it was nicknamed ‘Brunel’s Billiard Table’ and it was supplemented with a third rail for dual gauge operation allowing standard gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in trains to also operate on the route in stages between 1854 and 1875. The broad gauge remained in use until 1892, evidence of the original broad gauge can still be seen at many places where bridges are a wider than usual, or where tracks are ten feet apart instead of the usual six. The original dual tracks were widened to four track in places between 1877 and 1899. Further widenings of the line took place between 1903 and 1910, the railways returned to direct government control during World War II before being nationalised to form British Railways in 1948. More widening infrastructure work took place between 1931 and 1932, and the extension to south wales was quadrupled 1941, the line speed was upgraded in the 1970s to support the introduction of the InterCity 125. Under the 1979–90 Conservative governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented, the route of the GWML includes dozens of listed buildings and structures, including tunnel portals, bridges and viaducts, stations, and associated hotels. Grade I listed structures on the line include London Paddington, Wharncliffe Viaduct, the 1839 Tudor gothic River Avon Bridge in Bristol, from London to Didcot, the line follows the Thames Valley, crossing the River Thames three times, including on the famous Maidenhead Railway Bridge. After Swindon, trains pass the Swindon Steam Railway Museum, from Wootton Bassett there are two different routes to Bristol, firstly via Box Tunnel and secondly via Bristol Parkway. It is also possible to run via the Wessex Main Line, beyond Bristol, some trains continue on the Bristol to Taunton Line to Weston-super-Mare or beyond. Main line and local services are provided by Great Western Railway, the stations served by trains between London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads are, Slough, Reading, Didcot Parkway, Swindon, Chippenham, and Bath Spa. Local services on this route are operated by GWR and BAA under the Heathrow Connect name

33.
Cross Country Route
–
The UK cross-country route is a long-distance UK rail route that has in its central part superseded the Midland Railway. It runs from Cornwall via Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds and it facilitates some of the longest passenger journeys in the UK such as Penzance to Aberdeen. In the summer services are provided to additional coastal stations such as Newquay, most Derby-Nottingham local passenger trains were taken over by diesel units from 14 April 1958, taking about 34 minutes between the two cities. Use and services have expanded since privatisation when a route was awarded as a single franchise to Virgin Trains. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the network was served by High Speed Trains, and Class 47s, modern, more powerful multiple-units of the 21st century such as the Turbostars and Voyagers have improved train performance without electrification. However, the line has higher operating costs and a higher carbon footprint than if it were electrified. The use of the route for freight has decreased, due to the bulk of haulage switching to road use, in the 1960s the route was considered for electrification. This would have been beneficial for climbing the Lickey Incline between Cheltenham and Birmingham, as many of the early diesels were underpowered. Under the governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented, the Birmingham to Derby section of the route has a line speed of 125 mph, however Birmingham to Bristol is restricted to 100 mph due to a number of half barrier level crossings. The line is not fully electrified, but some sections are overhead electrified at 25kV AC, Barnt Green to Grand Junction, with further sections around Leeds and it has been confirmed that the line between Derby and Sheffield will be electrified as part of the Midland Main Line upgrade. Most long distance services on the route are operated by Class 220/221 Voyager Trains and these trains are capable of achieving 125 mph, compared to the previous Class 47s and Mk 2 coaching stock, which had a top speed of 95 mph. Rail services in Bristol Transport in Wales Virgin CrossCountry CrossCountry Notes References

34.
Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
Bristol Temple Meads is the oldest and largest railway station in Bristol, England. It is an important transport hub for transport in the city. In addition to the services there are bus services to many parts of the city and surrounding districts. Bristols other main station, Bristol Parkway, is on the northern outskirts of the conurbation. Temple Meads was opened on 31 August 1840 as the terminus of the Great Western Railway from London Paddington,116 miles 31 chains from Paddington. The railway was the first one designed by the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, soon the station was also used by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, the Bristol Harbour Railway and the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway. To accommodate the number of trains, the station was expanded in the 1870s by Francis Fox. Brunels terminus is no part of the operational station. The historical significance of the station has been noted, and most of the site is Grade I listed, the platforms are numbered 1 to 15 but passenger trains are confined to just eight tracks. Most platforms are numbered separately at each end, with odd numbers at the east end, Platform 2 is not signalled for passenger trains, and there is no platform 14. Temple Meads is managed by Network Rail and the majority of services are operated by the present-day Great Western Railway, other operators are CrossCountry and South West Trains. In the 12 months to March 2014,9.5 million entries, the name Temple Meads derives from the nearby Temple Church, which was gutted by bombing during World War II. The word meads is a derivation of mæd, an Old English variation of mædwe, meadow, as late as 1820 the site was undeveloped pasture outside the boundaries of the old city, some distance from the commercial centre. It lay between the Floating Harbour and the cattle market, which was built in 1830. The original terminus was built in 1839–41 for the Great Western Railway, the first passenger railway in Bristol, and was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and it was built to Brunels 7 ft broad gauge. The station was on a viaduct to raise it above the level of the Floating Harbour and River Avon, the latter being crossed via the grade I listed Avon Bridge. The station was covered by a 200-foot train shed, extended beyond the platforms by 155 feet into a storage area, Train services to Bath commenced on 31 August 1840 and were extended to Paddington on 30 June 1841 following the completion of Box Tunnel. A few weeks before the start of the services to Paddington the Bristol and Exeter Railway had opened, on 14 June 1841, its trains reversing in and out of the GWR station

Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
Facade of the station.
Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
Engraving of interior of Brunel's train-shed from c1843, by John Cooke Bourne.
Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
Brunel's original station as it appears today.
Bristol Temple Meads railway station
–
The Bristol and Exeter Railway headquarters

35.
Birmingham New Street railway station
–
Birmingham New Street is the largest and busiest of the three main railway stations in the city centre of Birmingham, England. It is a hub of the British railway system. The station is named after New Street, which runs parallel to the station, historically the main entrance to the station was on Stephenson Street, just off New Street. Today the station has entrances on Stephenson Street, Smallbrook Queensway, Hill Street, New Street is the seventh busiest railway station in the UK and the busiest outside London, with 39 million passenger entries and exits between April 2015 and March 2016. It is also the busiest interchange station outside London, with over 5.8 million passengers changing trains at the station annually, the original New Street station opened in 1854. At the time of its construction, the station had the largest single-span arched roof in the world, In the 1960s, the station was completely rebuilt. An enclosed station, with buildings over most of its span and passenger numbers more than twice those it was designed for, a £550m redevelopment of the station named Gateway Plus opened in September 2015. It includes a new concourse, a new facade. Around 80% of train services to Birmingham go through New Street, the other major city-centre stations in Birmingham are Birmingham Moor Street and Birmingham Snow Hill. On the outskirts, closer to Solihull, is Birmingham International, which serves Birmingham Airport and the National Exhibition Centre. Since 30 May 2016, New Street has been served by the Midland Metro tram line, the Grand Central New Street Station tram stop is located outside the stations main entrance on Stephenson Street. New Street station was built by the London and North Western Railway between 1846 and 1854, until 1885 the LNWR shared the station with the Midland Railway, whose trains also used the station. However, in 1885 the Midland Railway opened its own alongside the original station for the exclusive use of its trains. The two companies stations were separated by a roadway, Queens Drive. Traffic grew steadily, and by 1900 New Street had an average of 40 trains an hour departing and arriving, rising to 53 trains in the peak hours. The Countess of Huntingdons Connexion chapel, on the corner of Peck Lane and Dudley Street, on the formal opening day, the LNWRs Curzon Street railway station was closed to regular passenger services, and trains from the London direction started using New Street. The station was constructed by Messrs, fox, Henderson & Co. and designed by Edward Alfred Cowper of that firm, who had previously worked on the design of The Crystal Palace. When completed, it had the largest arched single-span iron and glass roof in the world, spanning a width of 212 feet and it held this title for 14 years until St Pancras station opened in 1868

Birmingham New Street railway station
–
The east end of the station
Birmingham New Street railway station
–
An aerial view of the original New Street from the early 20th century, showing the LNWR and Midland stations side by side, with Queens Drive between them
Birmingham New Street railway station
–
The interior of the original LNWR station in the late 19th Century, with its once record breaking roof
Birmingham New Street railway station
–
Midland Railway's extension of New Street station, in 1885

36.
Yate railway station
–
Yate railway station serves the town of Yate in South Gloucestershire, in south west England. The station is located on the main Bristol to Birmingham line between Bristol Parkway and Cam & Dursley, and is operated by Great Western Railway, the station is staffed on weekday mornings. It has two platforms, separated by the A432 road bridge, an automated ticket machine was installed in mid-2007, but stopped functioning due to vandalism and is reported to be unlikely to be replaced in the foreseeable future. A new ticket machine was installed in 2013 and this had both its platforms on the southern side of the road bridge mentioned above - the original 1844 goods shed still stands next to the old southbound platform site. The station was reopened by British Rail on 11 May 1989 with the backing of Avon County Council, the new connection left the older line by means a flying junction at Yate South before heading southwest to join the SWML at the triangular Westerleigh Junction. All services now use this line to get to Bristol. A short section of the old route was retained from Yate South Junction after the rest closed and this line is still in use today. In the Strategic Rail Authority’s 2007/08 financial year, Yate was ranked as the 1104th most-used station in the UK. The station is served Monday to Saturday by a train every hour in both directions between Gloucester and Westbury via Bristol Temple Meads southbound, plus a single service to/from Brighton), Yate station is also served by a two-hourly Sunday service. A normal service operates on most bank holidays, friends of Yate Station site Yate Heritage Centres page Victorians and Yates Railway

Yate railway station
–
150279 arrives at the Bristol side of the station.
Yate railway station
–
A 1909 Railway Clearing House map of railways in the vicinity of Yate

37.
The Cotswolds
–
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and into the countryside gained popularity. Now the Cotswolds boundaries are roughly 25 miles across and 90 miles long, stretching south-west from just south of Stratford-upon-Avon to just south of Bath. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties, mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the hills give their name to the Cotswold local-government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area. The highest point of the region is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft, there is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts. Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth, settlements such as Gloucester, the area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone wool churches. The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds. The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term, wold, compare also the Weald from the Saxon/German word Wald meaning wood. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names, Cutsdean, Codeswellan, the spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and this feature, known as the Cotswold escarpment, or sometimes the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms, the dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud, to the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath. The area is characterised by small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone. This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins, Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Dursley, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester and Stroud are larger urban centres that border on, or are surrounded by. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th, William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic Jurassic limestone

The Cotswolds
–
Castle Combe, a typical Cotswolds village made with Cotswold stone
The Cotswolds
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Bibury, a typical Cotswold village
The Cotswolds
–
Rolling hills and farm fields that typify the Cotswolds landscape
The Cotswolds
–
The "Secret Garden" at Sudeley Castle

38.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
–
It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories. Its head is the Sovereign of the United Kingdom and its seat is the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the boroughs of the British capital, the parliament is bicameral, consisting of an upper house and a lower house. The Sovereign forms the third component of the legislature, prior to the opening of the Supreme Court in October 2009, the House of Lords also performed a judicial role through the Law Lords. The House of Commons is an elected chamber with elections held at least every five years. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster in London, most cabinet ministers are from the Commons, whilst junior ministers can be from either House. The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Treaty of Union by Acts of Union passed by the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The UK parliament and its institutions have set the pattern for many throughout the world. However, John Bright – who coined the epithet – used it with reference to a rather than a parliament. In theory, the UKs supreme legislative power is vested in the Crown-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the Prime Minister, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created in 1801, by the merger of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland under the Acts of Union. The principle of responsibility to the lower House did not develop until the 19th century—the House of Lords was superior to the House of Commons both in theory and in practice. Members of the House of Commons were elected in an electoral system. Thus, the borough of Old Sarum, with seven voters, many small constituencies, known as pocket or rotten boroughs, were controlled by members of the House of Lords, who could ensure the election of their relatives or supporters. During the reforms of the 19th century, beginning with the Reform Act 1832, No longer dependent on the Lords for their seats, MPs grew more assertive. The supremacy of the British House of Commons was established in the early 20th century, in 1909, the Commons passed the so-called Peoples Budget, which made numerous changes to the taxation system which were detrimental to wealthy landowners. The House of Lords, which consisted mostly of powerful landowners, on the basis of the Budgets popularity and the Lords consequent unpopularity, the Liberal Party narrowly won two general elections in 1910. Using the result as a mandate, the Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, introduced the Parliament Bill, in the face of such a threat, the House of Lords narrowly passed the bill. However, regardless of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 created the parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland and reduced the representation of both parts at Westminster

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
–
Parliament at night, with the London Eye visible at right
Parliament of the United Kingdom
–
Leading 17th century Parliamentarian John Hampden is one of the Five Members annually commemorated

39.
Historic counties of England
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The historic counties of England were established for administration by the Normans, in most cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires established by the Anglo-Saxons and others. They ceased to be used for administration with the creation of the counties in 1889. They are alternatively known as ancient counties or traditional counties, where they are not included among the modern counties of England they are also known as former counties. Counties were used initially for the administration of justice, collection of taxes and organisation of the military and they continue to form the basis of modern local government in many parts of the country away from the main urban areas, although sometimes with considerably altered boundaries. The name of a county often gives a clue to how it was formed, either as a division took its name from a centre of administration. The majority of English counties are in the first category, with the name formed by combining the central town with the suffix -shire, for example Yorkshire. Former kingdoms, which became earldoms in the united England did not feature this formulation, so for Kent, Counties ending in the suffix -sex are also in this category and are former Saxon kingdoms. Many of these names are formed from compass directions, the third category includes counties such as Cornwall and Devon where the name corresponds to the tribes who inhabited the area. County Durham is anomalous in terms of naming and origin, not falling into any of the three categories, instead it was a diocese that was turned into the County Palatine of Durham, ruled by the Bishop of Durham. The expected form would otherwise be Durhamshire, but it was rarely used, there are customary abbreviations for many of the counties. In most cases these consist of simple truncation, usually with an s at the end signifying shire, some abbreviations are not obvious, such as Salop for Shropshire, Oxon for Oxfordshire, Hants for Hampshire and Northants for Northamptonshire. Counties were often prefixed with County of in official contexts, such as County of Kent and those counties named after central towns lost the -shire suffix, for example Yorkshire would be known as County of York. This usage was sometimes followed even where there was no town by that name, the -shire suffix was also appended for some counties, such as Devonshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, despite their origin. There is still a Duke of Devonshire, Great Britain was first divided into administrative areas by the Romans, most likely following major geographical features such as rivers. Before their arrival there were distinct tribal areas, but they were in a constant state of flux as territory was gained, the areas that would later form the English counties started to take shape soon afterwards, with the Kingdom of Kent founded by settlers around 445. Once the Kingdom of England was united as a whole in 927 it became necessary to subdivide it for convenience and to this end. The whole kingdom was divided into shires by the time of the Norman conquest, robert of Gloucester accounts for thirty-five shires and William of Malmesbury thirty-two, Henry of Huntingdon, thirty-seven. In most cases the counties or shires in medieval times were administered by a sheriff on behalf of the monarch, after the Norman conquest the sheriff was replaced and the shires became counties, or areas under the control of a count, in the French manner

Historic counties of England
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Map of the English and Welsh counties in 1824
Historic counties of England
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Counties of England in 1851 with major rivers, the ridings of Yorkshire, and the remaining exclaves shown
Historic counties of England
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This (rather inaccurate) 1814 map shows Dudley in a detached part of Worcestershire surrounded by Staffordshire. Note the detached portion of Shropshire (the parish of Halesowen), just to the south-east and part of Staffordshire (Broome and Clent) to the south-west as well.
Historic counties of England
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The ancient county boundaries of Warwickshire covered a larger area than the county in 1974 (in green).

40.
Northavon
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Northavon was a district in the English county of Avon from 1974 to 1996. The district was formed by the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974 as part of a reform of local authorities throughout England and Wales. Under the reorganisation, the surrounding the cities of Bath and Bristol was formed into a new county of Avon. The county was divided into six districts, one of which was formed from the areas of Sodbury Rural District, the name Northavon was invented in 1973, simply denoting the districts position in the county. In 1991 the county boundaries of Avon and Gloucestershire were realigned, the main effect of the change was that the Hillesley and Tresham area was transferred from Northavon to the neighbouring District of Stroud in Gloucestershire. Following a review by the Local Government Commission for England, both the County of Avon and District of Northavon were abolished on 1 April 1996, Northavon was merged with the neighbouring Borough of Kingswood to form the unitary authority of South Gloucestershire. Northavon was a constituency, however it was split at the 2010 general election into Filton and Bradley Stoke and Thornbury

Northavon
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Northavon

41.
County of Avon
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Avon /ˈeɪvən/ was, from 1974 to 1996, a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England. The county was named after the River Avon, which runs through the area and it was formed from parts of the historic counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset, together with the City of Bristol. In 1996, the county was abolished and the split between four new unitary authorities, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset. The Avon name is used for some purposes. The area had a population of approximately 1.08 million people in 2009, the port of Bristol lies close to the mouth of the River Avon which formed the historic boundary between Gloucestershire and Somerset. In 1373 a charter constituted the area as the County of the Town of Bristol, the appointment of a boundaries commission in 1887 led to a campaign for the creation of a county of Greater Bristol. The commissioners, while recommending that Bristol should be neither in the county of Gloucester nor of Somerset for any purpose whatsoever, the commissions timidity was attacked by the Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, who accused them of using the crude method of the Procrustean bed. The interests of the Tory party were put before every other consideration, under the Local Government Act 1888 Bristol was constituted a county borough, exercising the powers of both a county and city council. The city was extended to take in some Gloucestershire suburbs in 1898 and 1904, the Local Government Boundary Commission appointed in 1945 recommended the creation of a one-tier county of Bristol based on the existing county borough, but the report was not acted upon. The next proposals for government reform in the area were made in 1968. The commission recommended dividing England into unitary areas, One of these was a new Bristol and Bath Area which would have included a wide swathe of countryside surrounding the two cities, extending into Wiltshire and as far as Frome in Somerset. Following a change of government at the 1970 general election, a system of counties. In a white paper published in 1971 one of these counties Area 26 or Bristol County, was based on the commissions Bristol and Bath area, the proposals were opposed by Somerset County Council, and this led to the setting up of a Save Our Somerset campaign. By the time the Local Government Bill was introduced to Parliament, the boundaries of the new county were cut back during the passage of Local Government Bill through Parliament. The Local Government Act 1972 received the Royal Assent on 26 October 1972, the county came into formal existence on 1 April 1974 when the Local Government Act 1972 came into effect. The county was divided into six districts, Bristol and Bath had identical boundaries to the county boroughs. In the south, there were two districts, on the coast, Woodspring, and in the interior, Wansdyke, to the north the county bordered Gloucestershire, to the east Wiltshire and to the south Somerset. In the west it had a coast on the Severn Estuary, the area of Avon was 520 square miles and its population in 1991 was 919,800

County of Avon
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Avon shown within England

42.
Ceremonial county
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk

Ceremonial county
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Ceremonial counties (England)

43.
Domesday Book
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Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states, Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Glocester with his council. After this had the king a large meeting, and very deep consultation with his council, about this land, how it was occupied and it was written in Medieval Latin, was highly abbreviated, and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The assessors reckoning of a mans holdings and their values, as recorded in Domesday Book, was dispositive, the name Domesday Book came into use in the 12th century. As Richard FitzNeal wrote in the Dialogus de Scaccario, for as the sentence of that strict and terrible last account cannot be evaded by any skilful subterfuge and its sentence cannot be quashed or set aside with impunity. That is why we have called the book the Book of Judgement, because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgement, are unalterable. The manuscript is held at The National Archives at Kew, London, in 2011, the Open Domesday site made the manuscript available online. The book is a primary source for modern historians and historical economists. Domesday Book encompasses two independent works, Little Domesday and Great Domesday, no surveys were made of the City of London, Winchester, or some other towns, probably due to their tax-exempt status. Most of Cumberland and Westmorland are missing, the omission of the other counties and towns is not fully explained, although in particular Cumberland and Westmorland had yet to be fully conquered. Little Domesday – so named because its format is smaller than its companions – is the more detailed survey. It may have represented the first attempt, resulting in a decision to avoid such level of detail in Great Domesday, some of the largest such magnates held several hundred fees, in a few cases in more than one county. For example, the chapter of the Domesday Book Devonshire section concerning Baldwin the Sheriff lists 176 holdings held in-chief by him, as a review of taxes owed, it was highly unpopular. Each countys list opened with the demesne lands. It should be borne in mind that under the system the king was the only true owner of land in England. He was thus the ultimate overlord and even the greatest magnate could do no more than hold land from him as a tenant under one of the contracts of feudal land tenure. In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section and this principle applies more specially to the larger volume, in the smaller one, the system is more confused, the execution less perfect. Domesday names a total of 13,418 places and these include fragments of custumals, records of the military service due, of markets, mints, and so forth

Domesday Book
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Domesday Book: an engraving published in 1900. Great Domesday (the larger volume) and Little Domesday (the smaller volume), in their 1869 bindings, lying on their older " Tudor " bindings.
Domesday Book
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Great Domesday in its " Tudor " binding: a wood-engraving of the 1860s
Domesday Book
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Domesday chest, the German-style iron-bound chest of c.1500 in which Domesday Book was kept in the 17th and 18th centuries
Domesday Book
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Entries for Croydon and Cheam, Surrey, in the 1783 edition of Domesday Book

44.
Old English language
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English

Old English language
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A detail of the first page of the Beowulf manuscript, showing the words "ofer hron rade", i.e. "over the whale's road (=sea)". It is an example of an Old English stylistic device, the kenning.
Old English language
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"Her swutelað seo gecwydrædnes ðe" Old English inscription over the arch of the south porticus in the 10th-century St Mary's parish church, Breamore, Hampshire
Old English language
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The first page of the Beowulf manuscript with its opening Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."

45.
History of Anglo-Saxon England
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Anglo-Saxon England was early medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th century from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066. It consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927 when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan and it became part of the North Sea Empire of Cnut the Great, a personal union between England, Denmark and Norway in the 11th century. The Anglo-Saxons were the members of Germanic-speaking groups who migrated to the half of the island from continental Europe. Anglo-Saxon identity survived beyond the Norman conquest, came to be known as Englishry under Norman rule, Bede completed his book Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum in around 731. Thus the term for English people was in use by then to distinguish Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent, the historian James Campbell suggested that it was not until the late Anglo-Saxon period that England could be described as a nation state. It is certain that the concept of Englishness only developed very slowly, as the Roman occupation of Britain was coming to an end, Constantine III withdrew the remains of the army, in reaction to the barbarian invasion of Europe. The Romano-British leaders were faced with a security problem from seaborne raids. The expedient adopted by the Romano-British leaders was to enlist the help of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries, in about 442 the Anglo-Saxons mutinied, apparently because they had not been paid. There then followed several years of fighting between the British and the Anglo-Saxons, the fighting continued until around 500, when, at the Battle of Mount Badon, the Britons inflicted a severe defeat on the Anglo-Saxons. There are records of Germanic infiltration into Britain that date before the collapse of the Roman Empire and it is believed that the earliest Germanic visitors were eight cohorts of Batavians attached to the 14th Legion in the original invasion force under Aulus Plautius in AD43. There is a hypothesis that some of the tribes, identified as Britons by the Romans. It was quite common for Rome to swell its legions with foederati recruited from the German homelands and this practice also extended to the army serving in Britain, and graves of these mercenaries, along with their families, can be identified in the Roman cemeteries of the period. The migration continued with the departure of the Roman army, when Anglo-Saxons were recruited to defend Britain, and also during the period of the Anglo-Saxon first rebellion of 442. The arrival of the Anglo-Saxons into Britain can be seen in the context of a movement of Germanic peoples around Europe between the years 300 and 700, known as the Migration period. In the same there were migrations of Britons to the Armorican peninsula, initially around 383 during Roman rule. The historian Peter Hunter-Blair expounded what is now regarded as the view of the Anglo-Saxon arrival in Britain. He suggested a mass immigration, fighting and driving the Sub-Roman Britons off their land and into the extremities of the islands. This view was influenced by sources such as Bede, where he talks about the Britons being slaughtered or going into perpetual servitude

History of Anglo-Saxon England
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Escomb Church, a restored 7th century Anglo-Saxon church. Church architecture and artefacts provide a useful source of historical information.
History of Anglo-Saxon England
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2nd to 5th century simplified migration patterns.
History of Anglo-Saxon England
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Whitby Abbey
History of Anglo-Saxon England
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The walled defence round a burgh. Alfred's capital, Winchester. Saxon and medieval work on Roman foundations.

46.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period

47.
Bristol and Gloucester Railway
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The Bristol and Gloucester Railway opened in 1844 between Bristol and Gloucester, meeting the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway. It is now part of the line from the North-East of England through Derby. In the early century, Bristol was an important port. In 1824 a meeting was held at the White Lion Inn in Bristol to discuss the idea of a railway to be known as the Bristol, Northern and Western Railway. Although there was a deal of initial enthusiasm, there were technical difficulties and a financial crisis. These were locally known as The Coalpit Heath Dramway, serving among others, in spite of the problems, interest remained high. Through the 1830s lines were in construction, not only the Birmingham and Gloucester. A railway would give access to the coal and minerals - and the manufactured riches - of the North, in 1839 the Bristol and Gloucester Railway Bill was passed by Parliament. At Gloucester it formed a junction with the 7 ft 1⁄4 in broad gauge Cheltenham, in 1877 the joint Great Western and Midland Clifton Extension Railway in Bristol gave access to Avonmouth Docks, providing the docks with a route to the midlands. The line remains part of one of the UKs important routes, the Midland Railway later became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in the rationalisation of 1923. The LMS, along with the rest of the UKs mainline railways, however the section between Yate and Bristol through Mangotsfield is closed. It was due to close on 3 January 1970, but in fact closed a week early after a landslip blocked the line at Staple Hill, traffic now diverts at Westerleigh Junction and passes through Bristol Parkway and Filton. The broad gauge locomotives that operated this line carried up to four different numbers during the ten years or so that they were running, the first number was given by Stothert and Slaughter who were contracted to operate the railway. They were twice renumbered by adding 100 to their number in June 1852, eight of the locomotives were sold by the MR to Thomas Brassey, who had secured the contract for working the North Devon Railway from 28 July 1855. These were intended for goods traffic, the locomotives were built at Stothert and Slaughters workshops in Bristol using parts supplied by Bury, Curtis, and Kennedy. 1 Tugwell Midland Railway 268, it was broken up in 1856 and it was sold for £1000 to Thomas Brassey in May 1856 to work on the North Devon Railway, where it was named Venus, being withdrawn in August 1870. It was broken up by September 1851 and these locomotives were built at Stothert and Slaughters workshops in Bristol using parts supplied by Bury, Curtis, and Kennedy. |}4 Bristol Named after Bristol, the terminus of the line

Bristol and Gloucester Railway
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Sketchmap of Bristol and Gloucester as originally built with associated railways
Bristol and Gloucester Railway
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Down coal train south of Haresfield in 1962

48.
Beeching Axe
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The 1963 report also recommended some less well publicised changes, including a switch to containerisation for rail freight. After growing rapidly in the 19th century during the Railway Mania, after the First World War the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which led to the closure of some 1,300 miles of passenger railway between 1923 and 1939. Some of these lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. The railways were busy during World War II, but at the end of the war they were in a state of repair. The Branch Lines Committee of the British Transport Commission was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the branch lines,3,318 miles of railway were closed between 1948 and 1962. This period saw the beginning of a closures protest movement led by the Railway Development Association and they went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals. Economic recovery and the end of petrol rationing led to growth in car ownership. Vehicle mileage grew at an annual rate of 10% between 1948 and 1964. By 1955 income no longer covered operating costs, and things got steadily worse, instead losses mounted, from £68 million in 1960 to £87 million in 1961, and £104 million in 1962. The BTC could no longer pay the interest on its loans, the government lost patience and looked for radical solutions. The report The Reshaping of British Railways was published on 27 March 1963, the report starts by quoting the brief provided by the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, from 1960, First, the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. Beeching first studied traffic flows on all lines to identify the good, the bad, finally there was the service from Hull to York via Beverley. The line covered 80% of its costs but he calculated that it could be closed because there was an alternative. A total of 2,363 stations were to close, including 435 already under threat and this was eventually adopted with Freightliner. He recommended further electrification of the West Coast Main Line from Crewe to Glasgow in 1974, staff terms and conditions were to be improved over time. On 16 February 1965, Beeching announced the stage of his reorganisation of the railways. In The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes, in this report he set out his conclusion that of the 7,500 miles of trunk railway only 3,000 miles should be selected for future development and invested in. This policy would result in traffic being routed along nine lines, of the 7,500 miles of trunk route,3,700 miles involves a choice between two routes,700 miles a choice of three, and over a further 700 miles a choice of four

Beeching Axe
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The overgrown viaduct across Lobb Ghyll on the Skipton to Ilkley Line in Yorkshire, built by the Midland Railway in 1888 and closed in 1965.
Beeching Axe
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British Railways crest as used on coaching stock and some diesel locomotives from 1956 until the late 1960s
Beeching Axe
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A copy of The Reshaping of British Railways report, displayed beside the National Union of Railwaymen 's response pamphlet.
Beeching Axe
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Both Wednesbury Town railway station and the South Staffordshire Railway were closed and were still in ruins in 2003.